Throughout the course of a day, young children can engage an array of items, ranging from food, baby items, such as bottles, and toys. Many young children, however, often struggle to securely grip these items when they are using them, causing them to plummet to the floor. This is especially frustrating to a child and his parents when the child is sitting in an infant and toddler chair and the item falls to the floor out of the child's reach.
Many of these chairs, such as traditional car seats don't have front surfaces on which the child can place the items, and so the items fall to the floor of the vehicle. The ensuing cries and tantrums of the child often distract the parents while driving. This can lead to potentially hazardous driving conditions, especially when the parents should try to reach and retrieve the item for the child without first pulling over.
Several other chairs, such as high chairs and booster chairs and seats pose the same problem. Many of these chairs are sized to leave ample unoccupied space between the chair's frame and the perimeter of the child's body. While ideal to enable use of the chair for children of varying sizes and widths, the resulting space, however, also enables the items to fall into the child's lap and through the space towards the floor. For instance, a high chair often has a front tray surface. The front tray surface of a high chair, however, is often set far enough from the front of a child's body that a dropped item, such as a bottle or a piece of food, can easily slip therebetween. Further, falling items are even more prevalent with chairs having no front surface, such as many booster chairs, where the unoccupied space is even more accessible.
Yet further, the item can become logged between the chair and the sides of the child's body, becoming difficult for an infant with limited fine motor skills to dislodge. In all scenarios, the parents must again interrupt what they are doing to retrieve the item for the child.
As a result, an array of devices have been designed which serve to enlarge the outer perimeter of a tray surface and/or to create a tray surface where there wasn't one before, to mitigate the likelihood that an item will fall to the floor. Yet other devices have an inner perimeter which cinches around the child's body when the child is seated within a chair. However, these devices are often large and difficult to employ for use with existing furniture and when transitioning between variable settings. Additionally, the child can find the cinching component uncomfortable and restricting when trying to maintain some mobility when seated.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.